Method of maturing



UNITED STATES 1 PATENT OFFICE- CHARLES S. PHILIPS, OF BROOKLYN, NEWYORK.

METHOD OF MATURING, SWEATING, AND COLORING LEAF-TOBACCO.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 245,743, dated August16, 1881.

Application filed February 25, 1881. (No specimens.)

To all whom it may concern Be it known that I, CHARLES S. PHILIPS, ofthe city of Brooklyn, in the county of Kings and State of New York, haveinvented certain new and useful Improvements in the Process of Maturing, Sweating, and GoloringLeaf-Tobacco, of which the following is aspecification.

The object and nature of my invention are to cure, sweat, and colortobacco without developing or retaining odors of an empyreumatic nature;and it consistsin sufficiently eliminating or neutralizing the rank orempyreumatic odor producing product of the leaf to accomplish thepurpose during the curing, sweating, or coloring process. I willdescribe some practical ways by which it may be done.

Domestic seed-leaf or cigar tobacco is cut and gathered from the fieldearly in the fall of the year. The whole plant is hung up in barns andsheds to dry out and partly cure, and the following winter, when theweather is moist enough to soften the tobacco, the plants are takendown, the leaves picked off and tied into hands or banks of a few leaveseach. About four hundred pounds of such hands are weighed off and packedinto a wooden case about thirty inches wide, thirty inches high, andabout forty-two to forty-eight inches long. These cases are then piledin barns or warehouses, and left until the following summer hasfermented the tobacco, or until it has gone through a sweat. Each caseis then inspected or sampled in order to ascertain its condition. Thebeneficial result of this fermentation, or sweat, as it is called, willdepend entirely upon the condition of the tobacco as to its moisture atthe time it was packed, and the condition of the atmosphere surroundingthe case during the sweat. The custom is to pack the tobacco rathermoist, so that it will sweat hard, and thus avoid the necessity ofresweating it; but the outer portions of each case dry out so muchbefore the tobacco gets into a sweat that it does not colorsufficiently, but comes from the sweat a strong leaf suitable forresweating, while the central portion of the tobacco in the case, whichdid not dry out, but went through a summer sweat, comes from the sweatdark enough in color, perhaps, but generally so tender as to unfitit forcigar-wrapping purposes, also nnfits it for resweating, as such longperiods of fermentation destroy the fiber or texture of the leaf, andconsequently quite a large percentage of wrapping-tobacco is spoiled,while tobacco that is packed not too wet'comes from the summer sweatinsuch a condition as to strength of leaf that it may all be resweated andused for wrappers without any loss.

A large percentage of the cigar-wrapping tobacco comes into market notsuificiently cured, and too light and uneven in color to meet the wantsof manufacturers, and has to be resweated for the purpose of eliminatingthe wild, rank element of the leaf, and producing dark colors before itcan be used for cigar purposes; and, for the purpose of curing anddarkening the color of the leaf, manufacturers and others now take thetobacco from the cases and dampen it as much as they think it needs, andthen stack it into square or round piles, the contents of several casesin a pile, or pack it into the cases again, and tier the cases in a roomor apparatus, and as soon as possible heat the room to a high degree, sothat the tobacco is quickly heated through, and it is then said to be insweat. They seem to labor under the delusive impression that the soonerthey can get .their tobacco heated to a high temperature and the moreheat they can use the more rapid and better work they are doing, whilequite the contrary is the fact. as experiments have proven to me that ittakes or requires about forty-eight hours of moist heat at about-140Fahrenheit to heat a case of tobacco through. to its center, whether itbe wet or dry; whereas if the tobacco be moist and placed underfavorable conditions for the development or acceleration offermentation-say at temperatures ranging from to Fahrenheit, orthereabout-or at such temperatures as will not kill fermentation, thesame case will be heated through in about the same time. In the firstinstance fermentation is not allowed to develop. The heat must work itsway gradually from the outside until it penetrates the middle of themass. In the second instance fermentation is allowed to develop, and itcommences in the center of the mass first and works outward, and by thetime the whole mass has become afiected the interior temperature of themass is much above the outside or surrounding atmosphere.

Many ways are employed for heating the tobacco or the rooms or apparatusin which the tobacco to be heated is placed; but everybody recognizesthe fact that it requires moist heat and high temperature to producedarker shades of tobacco, and many mechanical contrivances have beentried to produce two results-darkcolored and merchantable tobacco-and bymerchantable I mean that the tobacco should not have such an unnaturalodor as to render it objectionable. In all the processes and apparatusnowin use the heat, not

being properly applied, produces very objectionable results, which asyet no one before me has been able to overcome. The tobacco comes fromthem all impregnated with an offensive and an unnatural odor. The lengthof time which tobacco must necessarily be subjected to heat to producedark colors depends entirely upon how moist the tobacco is and thedegrees of heat used and the quantity of'tobacco which may be in themass. As a rule it requires a heat of over 130 Fahrenheit to change theoriginal colors of unfermented tobacco to darker shades. Afterresweating a great many thousand cases of tobacco, I find 110 to 145Fahrenheit to be the best temperature of heat to work by on all kinds oftobacco already fermented enough to be called cured, and from four tosix days to be the average time necessary for such tobacco to besubjected to a heat ranging between those degrees. As the objectionableor empyreumatic odor is developed in new or uncured tobacco at a much.lower temperature than in old, such tobacco should only be subjectedto'a heat ranging from to 90 Fahrenheit for the purpose of facilitatingnatural fermentation until the tobacco has obtained proper age-that is,has become properly cured-and the gum is sufficiently reduced to permitits being cased or moistened and resweated, the same as old tobacco.

The offensive and unnatural odor before mentioned I find is caused bythe too sudden application of a high degree of heat to the tobacco; andwhat I mean by a high degreeof heatis any degree of heat that will killnatural fermentation, and it may be distinguished by the peculiar andunnatural odor the tobacco takes on while in the heat. It cannot beconfined to a single degree, as it may vary considerably, according asthetobacco may be more or less wild and rich in rank elements. Thesafest way to facilitate and accelerate natural fermentation isordinarily to keep between and Fahrenheit. High heats applied tofreshly-wetted or uncured tobacco decompose some of the properties ofthe leaf, and

- the result is the bad odor of an empyreu'matic nature is developedbefore the tobacco becomes sufficiently colored, which renders thetobacco so treated unmerchantable. This objectionable odor is commonlycalled by the trade Kentucky smell or steam smell, and by many issupposed to be caused from chemicals used to color the tobacco; and bythose who know that chemicals are not used the fault is laid tothemetals or wood of the apparatus with which the tobacco came incontact during its treatment; but heat improperly or too suddenlyapplied is the sole cause of the bad odors.

I have discovered that if tobacco be subjected to a low heat that willfacilitate fermentation, and for a sutficient length of time, theempyreumatic-odor-produciug products of the leaf are broken up andeliminated, and that ammoniacal fermentation is generally established;andwhen fermentation takes place,

tobacco to undergo fermentation cannot be specified, it must be left tothe judgment of the operator, but is best determined by the good smellthe tobacco takes on while fermenting. Ten to twenty days may besufficient for goods of a fine quality, while ranker crops would requireseveral weeks. The more ammonia the fermentation develops the quickerwill be the process. After the tobacco has been moistened and has stoodan hour or so on a casing-board, I place it nicely and snugly into largewooden boxes which will hold one case each, taking care that the buttslack about one inch from touching the wood of the box. This leaves anairspace around the butts and prevents mold during fermentation.

I let the tips of the tobacco-leaves lap, as usual,

but do not press the tobacco into the boxes, as fermentation is moreactive if the tobacco does not press too heavily together. I cover thetobacco with a board that fits inside of the box, and thus it alwayslies on the top of the tobacco and prevents it drying out. I then letthe boxes of tobacco stand four or five days.

-When the temperature is about 70 Fahrenheit, during the warm weather, Iuse onlythe natural heat, and in cold weather artificial heat. At. theend of three or four days the tobacco should be in agood sweat. I nowrepack it into the original or seed-leaf cases, for the reason that whenthe tobacco comes to be subjected to a high heat the ammonia in thetobacco will be decomposed and the gas escapes; and I wish it to escapeso slowly as not to become exhausted before the tobacco is colored andthe process finished, and the tighter the cases are the more perfectwill be the process.

' As scenes the tobacco is taken from the boxes and packed into cases,the cases must go back to 'i' 0 or Fahrenheit temperature,

or thereabout. again for a few days, (from two to five,) or until thetobacco becomes heated through again by fermentation before the heat canbe raised for colors. This makes about ten days the process has beengoing on, and now is the time to decide when the tobacco will besufficiently fermented to go into high heat for colors. Any goods thatshow a green uncured condition, or a heavy gummy leaf, or a leaf thatwould swell when smoked as a wrapper, must be left to a few more daysfermentation. All such defects must be thoroughly corrected byfermentation before the tobacco is put to a high heat, for the reasonsbefore stated, and also because high heat does not take out the gum fromthe leaves as faster as well as low heats and fermentation. All goodsthat seem to have fermented or sweated enough so that they will sweatfor colors, I now subject to such heats as will bring out dark colors. Ifind it avery safe and satisfactory rule to work by to give the tobacco110 Fahrenheit for the first three or four days, (counting twenty-fourhours continuous process for one day,) and then raise the heat to 140Fahrenheit, and continue it for about three days or more. If it bedesirable to keep the heat up only during the working-hours of the day,then the process may be continued a sufficient number of days toaccomplish the object. At the end of the fifth or sixth day I examinethe tobacco and take from'the process all the cases that may be done,and after they have stood an hour or more I then shake out the tobacco,and either repack it or give it to the workmen to be worked up. Thereason for shaking it out after it comes from the process, and while itis yet warm, is because the tobacco, if left to get cold in the mass,would mat and stick together, and soon be much like plug-tobacco, and beworthless for wrapping purposes; but while it is yet warm the leaveswill easily separate by gently shaking them out. I let the cases oftobacco stand long enough before shaking them out to allow the mass tolose a large percentage of its heat, as the cooler air, if allowed tostrike the tobacco while it is too warm, would cause a thickening of theleaf by contracting its pores. Upon examining the tobacco, any that isnot dark enough I put back for one or more days treatment, and so onuntil it is finished. At the end of the fourth days treatment at 140Fahrenheit any tobacco that will color under that degree of heat willhave done so, or at least will show a decided disposition to do so, andany tobacco that does not show such a disposition and has a red leaf Isubject to atemperature of 160 or 180 Fahrenheit, and examine it aboutevery twelve hours until it is as dark as I wish it to be.

If by any error in not first fermenting the tobacco sufiiciently beforesubjectingit to the high heat any case should come from the process witha bad odor, I shake out such tobacco at once while it is hot and hang itup so that every hand hangs free, and will dry quickly and sufficientlyto allow it being recased, and then commence the process all over again,and as soon as the tobacco goes into a fermentation again it will resumeits natural flavor or odor.

Tobacco can be made dark-colored with a much lower degree of heat afterit has been properly fermented than before. If the tobacco to be treatedbe sufficiently fermented, 140 Fahrenheit will, as a rule, besufficient, while tobacco not first fermented often requires from 180 to212 Fahrenheit to bring out the dark colors, and under such high heatsthe colors generally are of a dead and grayish appearance and uselessfor fine wrappers, while a rich and lively appearance is preserved bythe process and under the low heats heretofore mentioned, and it istherefore very desirable to get the colors with as low heat as possible.

It is not absolutely necessary that the tobacco should be repacked fromthe boxes into cases after it has commenced to ferment for the firsttime; but this is rather a precautionary measure, for the reason thatwhen the to bacco comes from the casing-board the bulbs are wet, and ifthey be packed into a tight box they will be apt to mold during thefermenting process; but if fermentation be carried on in an atmospheresufficiently dry to prevent molding, the tobacco may be packed intocases at once from the casing-board, and the labor of repackin g in thatstage of the process may be dispensed with. The head-boards of the casesmay be left out during fermentation, and placed in again while undermoist heat or treatment for colors.

In subjecting the tobacco to a high heat I prefer that it should be amoist heat, so that the tobacco will not dry out, and that is bestaccomplished by exhausting steam, or evaporating sufficient water in thesweat-rooms or apparatus to keep the atmosphere well saturated. If thetobacco be in wood or other receptacles, it will thus be protected fromoversaturation; but if it be in bulk, then the evaporation of the watershould be so regulated that the tobacco will not become too wet. Matted,sticky, or thin-leaf tobacco may be easily shaken out and made free byfirst snbjecting the tobacco, case and all,to a moist heat of 145Fahrenheit for about forty-eight hours, or until heated through, andthen shaking it out. The tobacco should lie in piles for aboutforty-eight hours to get cold before casing it. The process may then becarried on as before.

This treatment adds greatly to the strength of a fine ortenderly-inclined leaf.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim as new, and desire tosecure by Letters Patent, is-

1. The process of curing, sweating, and coloring tobacco which consistsin piling or packing it while in a moist condition, then subjecting itto a temperature between 60 and Fahrenheit until fermentation isestablished, and then continuing fermentation for from two to six'days,or such time as may be necessary to wholly or partially eliminate theundesirable element of the leaf, then increasing the heat to atemperature between '90 and 110 Fahrenheit for two or three days, andthen continuing for one day or such a period, and at any highertemperature less than 180 Fahrenheit as the nature of the tobacco mayrequire, in order to produce darker shades of color, substantially asdescribed.

2. The process of maturing partially or im-i properly cured tobaccowhich consists in pil- CHARLES S. PHILIPS.

Witnesses JAMES T. BALLARD, J OHN H. STITT.

